Recently, Massachusetts announced it will be phasing in a minimum wage of $15 per hour for home care workers. If Rhode Island does not begin to lift wages for direct care workers, long-term care programs in Rhode Island will not be able to recruit and retain trained and experienced front line care staff.

Fuerza came out to show our support of caregivers and the Good Jobs and Quality Care campaign!

On Saturday August 1st, we held the last workshop of Fuerza Laboral's 2015 Democracy School, learning and thinking about sexual harassment and sexism in the workplace and our own collective leadership development.

Congratulations to all of the graduates of Fuerza's Democracy School 2015! Now to take on more leadership roles in Fuerza!

On July 10-12, Fuerza Laboral and the Brooklyn Center for Family Life attended the Eastern Conference for Workplace Democracy (ECWP) in Worcester, MA. Both organizations, along with the City of Central Falls and Navigant Credit Union, are members of the POWER Network, a partnership which aims to implement a Cooperative Incubator Project to create jobs in the community in which workers collectively take charge of their economic lives.

On July 18 in Democracy School, we had workshop on sexism and sexual harassment with the participation of 26 people facilitated by Magalis Trancoso, Founder and Director from Dominican Development Center

On June 27, Fuerza's Democracy School 2015 held its first workshop, learning about racism and white supremacy in our workplace and globalized economies. The workshop was facilitated by Marco McWilliams, director of the Black Studies Program at DARE, who helped members sharpen our collective analysis of structural racism.

DEMOCRACY SCHOOL 2015! In June and July 2015, Fuerza Laboral is holding its annual intensive leadership course for Fuerza members and the broader community. In collaboration with other community organizations, Fuerza offers a series of workshops on structural racism, sexism and sexual assault, and leadership and empowerment.

All workshops will be bilingual Spanish-English, and food, transportation and childcare are provided. Participants who attend at least 2 of the 3 sessions will receive a graduation diploma.

On Tuesday June 16, the former workers of Gourmet Heaven had their first hearing at the RI federal court to recover the $150,000 in unpaid minimum wage and overtime from owner Chung Cho. Fuerza Laboral, RI Jobs with Justice, and Restaurant Opportunities Centers held a press conference to show Cho and the public that we're here and not going anywhere the restaurant industry stops all wage abuses, including wage theft and a two-tier minimum wage!

On Saturday June 14, Fuerza and RI Jobs with Justice showed up at Gourmet Heaven owner Cho Chung's house, rang his doorbell, and demanded that he pay the $100,000 he owes in stolen wages. We marched through his affluent neighborhood outside of New Haven, CT to tell his neighbors that this house was built on stolen wages!

Fuerza members learned about the history of racialization of Latinos in the United States and how the colonial racial hierarchy has influenced the identity of Latino communities in the Americas. A workshop that keeps you thinking many weeks later...

Carmela Garcia, leader of Fuerza's Injured Workers Committee speaks about how Obama's executive order affects her and her family and why it's so important for DACA and DAPA to continue. Read the story in the Providence Journal

Former workers at Café Atlantic had their hearings at the the Rhode Island Department of Labor and Training for stolen wages against their former employers Juan Noboa and José Brens. We should be receiving the final decision in the coming weeks.

Thank you to Direct Action for Rights and Equality (DARE) for an inspiring discussion with activists/organizers/revolutionaries Ashanti Alston and Chris Dixon about building transformative movements of people of color. We asked ourselves important questions, like: How do we create spaces of healing from trauma in our movements? How do we treat each other well in our movements? How do we truly treat knowledge as collective?